Dire Straits fall foul of Canadian PC

f**k c****a

In an interview I read Knopfler said the lyrics for that song were pretty much verbatim of a conversation he heard between two workmen at a store.

There is a fair bit of crabbing about it, that is for sure. 

This almost ranks right up there with the old Ontario Film Review Board days...

We seem to have a bunch of people up here who have a rather simplistic, timeless, view of language...

There is no sense of metaphor left here..

@Jeffb: Was that with gravy? 

jeffb9363


Mmmmm.......................................faggots.............................tasty.

I' am with you there Jeff, can't see what the Canadian Kerfuffle is all about myself
 
 

Guitarhacker


OK... we got the L-word, the N-word, and now the f-word.....lets just give every letter a word...

There was already a F word - now how do we know which one we are refering to??
 
And .. Any one recall that Kevin Bloody Wilson song about Canada??

@Jeffb: Was that with gravy?

Mushy peas!

Glyn Barnes
 
Now I had always interpreted the song as an attack on bigotry. 
 

Yes - ironic isn't it! Mark Knopfler writes the song in the 3rd person, from the view point of 2 delivery men from a department store in New York city! The song and the video pokes fun at the intellegence of those two - that are trying to poke fun at musicians as a whole.
 
This song was a wonderful capture of the moment in 1985 (actually 1983-1984 when the song was actually written), and Culture Club w/Boy George was every 2nd video on the airwaves.
 
Just great writing - silenced here in Canada.
 
When I first heard the news clip - I though PETA had influenced the decision because they had the nerve to compare a dummer to a chimpanzee in the 3rd verse :)

O.K. how'd I miss this?

Is there are more irrelevant medium than radio? They could ban all music from the radio and and I wouldn't hear any less music than I do now. I hope they don't ban it from the telegraph or take my wax cylinders away.  It like banning specific uses for the loom, or the ox an plow, phrenology, etc.
 
There is a bit more to this story than makes it into most media sources. The banning party was not the canadian government or people, it was a private organization that radio stations in canada join by choice. That said, membership in this organization saves a lot of headaches dealing with user complaints and most stations belong to it.
 
I heard that song more on the day it was banned than I did in the previous decade.
 
Terrible song :)

I think the age of the song is the real news story here. There are thousands of songs that can't be played on the radio. This is hardly the first song you can't hear on the radio. You couldn't play half the songs I own on the radio without editing them. Nobody seemed to have an issue before.
 
But you ban (kind of) one crusty old classic rock song and all of a sudden everyone cares about freedem of expression. Remove Dire Straights and replace it with Ice Cube and the same people would probably be a lot less outraged.